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The Opal Deception
Artemis Fowl and the Opal Deception (previously Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception) is the fourth book in the Artemis Fowl series, written by Eoin Colfer. It was released in April, 2005. Plot The story begins with the pixie genius Opal Koboi in an asylum, appearing to be in a coma after the collapse of her revolution. In reality, she actually was in a self-induced healing coma, a coma she learnt at the age of fourteen, which is young even by human standards, much less fairy. Though Opal was convinced that her rebellion in the second book would succeed, she still prepared a contingency plan which involved setting two of her most trusted employees, Merval and Descant Brill, iconic twin fairies, to work in an asylum and creating an account of money to be opened in the case that the revolution failed and she did go into a coma. After spending a record amount of time in the coma, she had her two accomplices in the J. Argon Clinic replace her with a brain-dead clone, exactly like Opal in a coma. After this, she progressed to frame Captain Holly Short with the murder of her Commander, Julius Root. She also sent a Bio-Bomb to the fourteen-year-old criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl Junior, who was incidentally at the time committing a bank robbery, and eventually another to the now outlawed Holly. Luckily for Artemis, his faithful bodyguard Butler saved him from the bio-bomb, though both were unconscious after a perilous fall from their balcony, and Artemis was severely injured. After fleeing Haven and failing to secure Artemis before the bomb detonated, Holly realized Opal had lured her above ground to increase the suspicion laid on her, and barely survived the second bio-bomb, using her helmet to suppress the solinium flares. She later noticed a coagulating group of curious humans near the fall and found Artemis. After healing him, she took Artemis to the Temple Bar area, one of the fairies' many Cham Pods. She tries, but fails to bring back Artemis's memories of The People. Despite this, Artemis complies on the notion that Holly pays him fairy gold, and proceeded to leave a message for the then unavailable Butler through the Fowl Manor phone. Unfortunately, the pod was blown apart by Opal and her henchmen before he could finish; she had been following them in a stealth-shuttle. Two things went in Artemis' favor, however, which were: a) He left his cell phone connected to his home. b) Holly did not bring Butler, him being too big to be removed without suspicion. Opal once again tries to kill both Artemis and Holly by stranding them in the Eleven Wonders Theme Park. Spraying them with troll pheromone when the once prosperous park was now inhabited by trolls, the creatures would soon realize the two were not the female of their kind and proceed to devour them instead. Just before their certain demise, Holly and Artemis were rescued by Butler and Mulch Diggums, who, after escaping the prison vessel transporting him, traveled to Fowl Manor to present Artemis with the memories stored on the disc he received. Caught in the act by Butler, he offered the disc to the bodyguard and, Butler's memories regained, together they raced to the Eleven Wonders. While being pulled up to the ship, Artemis acknowledged Holly as a friend and cancelled the earlier payment deal, saying 'Opal must be stopped'. His memories restored when he was given back his disc, they proceed to eliminate Opal's destructive scheme. They locate her in E7, her plan to create an interspecies war and destroying Haven almost at fruition. Meanwhile, Foaly discovers Opal's clever plan and convinces the council and Ark Sool to send a supersonic attack ship to check on Holly. While Artemis manages to stop Opal, just before her ship explodes, she fires two torpedoes at their ship, which then turn upon the Supersonic Attack Shuttle flown by Major Trouble Kelp. Having safely avoided the missiles, Trouble was given the order from Ark Sool to attack Holly. He disobeyed, however, and gave Holly a chance to prove her innocence through a communication rod connecting the two ships. Opal escaped above ground and was later captured and held captive in Atlantis, her magic wasted unreplenishably. Her henchmen, Mervall and Descant, were taken into custody earlier, Opal having abandoned them when their ship exploded, and confessed readily. Though Holly is later cleared of all charges, she is frustrated by her new commander, Ark Sool, who did not even give her the opportunity to pay her last respects to Commander Root, a notion she named the worst Sool could ever have done to her, and resigned, becoming a private detective along with the dwarf Mulch Diggums, who was acquitted on all charges. She maintained a secret correspondence with Artemis, who has finally appeared to redevelop some morals, giving to the public the priceless artwork he stole in the beginning of the book. Though it may be just a copy because it was sent in regular mail, and Artemis has a reputation in faking impressionist paintings. Cover Code Most Artemis Fowl books have Gnommish hidden somewhere on the cover, and ''The Opal Deception ''is no different. The cover portrays chute E37, and Gnommish is running up the sides from the center on the right if you look at the cover from a special angle under the light (first US edition) The Gnommish says "Opal wants revenge", and can be found in three other spots on the cover in straight lines. Secret Message There is a secret message written in Gnommish typed along the bottom of the book. Using the decoder in The Artemis Fowl Files, in says: "A recruitment letter from the centaur Foaly, technical consultant to the Lower Elements Police- Trusted ally, if you have decoded this Gnomish message, then you are a deputy officer in the Lower Elements Police. You will not be aware of this fact because it is the practice of the LEP to mindwipe our human allies. We do this so they cannot remember being recruited. If you cannot remember the Fairy People, or our underground city, then you cannot betray our existence to the greedy humans. Of course, not all humans are greedy. You, deputy, are a noble member of your species. And clever too. Our intelligence department studied your file and concluded they you were suitable for LEP membership. At the moment, you are only a deputy officer. To become a fully fledged officer, you must complete four tasks. #Decode this message. Something you are well on your way to completing. #Save the life of a member of another species. You can complete this task in any number of ways: open a window to release a trapped fly, build a bird bath in your garden, release a mouse from a trap... #Achieve a perfect score on a school test, or homework assignments. In this job, you need to be smart, as well as fit. #Wash yourself every day for a week. This is a difficult assignment, especially for you boys who do not like contact with water. If you are going to work underground often in cramped tunnels, you will appreciate a partner who does not smell like a hermit dwarf. Once you have completed these tasks, you must summon your recruiting officer in the ancient fashion: *Go to your back yard or nearest green area. *Make sure you are not being watched. *Find a soft spot of ground and burrow a six inch hole with a broom handle or short stick. When your hole is ready, tap out the letters "L," "E," "P" in morse code: "L" tap, tap, wiggle, tap, "E," wiggle, wiggle, tap "P" tap wiggle drill. *Do this at least a hundred times, and our underground sensors will pick up the vibration and send up an L. E. P. officer with your uniform and orders. :Good luck, deputy! :Foaly This is not part of the letter but don't you think it would take a really long time for the LEP officer to arrive or they will not pick it up? Although it's hard to prove it's possible that "Foaly" just wanted to do this so that any human who dechipered it would improve the human race in some small way. Once again there is also a rewrite which has failed to have been mentioned. Rewrite There has never been a regulated scientific study of dwarf's special abilities. What we know about them is based on folklore and hearsay. The most famous of these abilities is the dwarf tunnelling method by which they eat dirt and air, before expelling them out the other end. Though the actual force of this expulsion has never been measured, several witnesses have reported windows breaking more than twenty metres away. It is said that a master recycler can finetune his gas emissions so that instead of a widespread blast of flatulence he shoots out a concebtrated volumn of wind. Legend has it that one such master recycler (a certain Blurt Miggums) was so accurate with these columns that he could turn on a light switch from the other side of the room. Dwarfs themselves use casual terms to refer to the strength of their gas emissions. A "shirt flapper" is a gentle emission that would barely inflate a child's balloon. A "pants ripper", a sturdier blast and would certainly blow a hole in even the sturdiest material . A "nought to sixty" is a right whopper and could accelerate whoever dropped it to dangerous speeds. A "strap yourself down" is about as strong as it gets and could help a dwarf achieve flight. And finally the legendary "dark side of the moon" or simply "dark side". If released on a mountain top it could put a dwarf into orbit. There is no evidence that a dark side is anything more than a myth. All the same if you see a dwarf on a mountain with a red face, take cover. You can't be too careful around dwarf wind. Category:Artemis Fowl Series Category:Fiction